Alice Cooper Plays ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?’

Last week on ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?’ it was “your fucking nightmare” with Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows, but this week, we welcome you to another nightmare with Alice Cooper. In this episode, the horror rock icon confirms and disproves what’s written about him on Wikipedia.

With a career spanning over 50 years, there was plenty to speak with Cooper about. Going all the way back to his high school days, Cooper pointed out that an entry claiming his journalism teacher and track coach, Emmett Smith, kept a working guillotine that could slice watermelons in his classroom, was false. Turns out it was just a cardboard guillotine, but Alice revealed Mr. Smith would put his students in the homemade device for 10 minutes if they handed in their assignments late.

In this video, you’ll hear Alice Cooper describe his band’s audition for Frank Zappa’s record label, where they showed up at the experimental musician’s home at 7 AM. Back then, the Alice Cooper group was so out there, even Zappa didn’t understand their music. “I’m going to sign you because I don’t get it,”

Another Wikipedia falsehood states Alice Cooper almost died while performing onstage after his classic hanging stunt went wrong. It was actually during a rehearsal, but Cooper confirms he was just an inch or so away from death. “After doing it 100 times, it was fine, it worked every night,” Cooper explains. “We never thought that maybe the piano wire [supporting Cooper] might start getting a little bit old… and snap! As soon as I felt more pressure than it should be, I snapped my head back and it went over. If I would have had a Jay Leno chin, it would have caught me … I did get knocked out when I went down to the floor, because I dropped eight feet. The next day, we had a wire that would hold an elephant.”

Watch the Alice Cooper edition of ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?’ in the clip above.